Stockholm

Chapter 3

   After what seemed like forever, the bell for the end of class goes off. My anxiety has been through the roof for the whole class, and I'm worried about what Nate wanted to talk to me about.

   I turn to face him after slinging my backpack up on my shoulders, and holding onto the bottom of the straps.
   "Wouldn't Addison get mad at you for staying after class to talk to me? Her ex best friend, who happens to be a girl?" I ask, arching one eyebrow, knowing how Addison gets when one of her boy toys talk to other girls.

   "Nah, uhh.. she knows we're gonna talk after this class." He says as he stands up out of his chair, pulling one strap of his backpack onto one of his shoulders.
   I look up to make eye contact with him. He's about eight inches taller than me, myself being 5' 6, while he stands at 6' 2.
   My heart does that dropping thing again, and I start to think of why.

   "She wants us to stop being friends, or talking if you will." He sighs as he runs a hand through his brown hair, pushing the stray hair out of his face.
   My face immediately falls, and I feel my heart break a bit. Not because I have a crush on him - well maybe that's part of it - but because we've been friends for so long.
    "I don't really agree with it though. So, at school we just have to pretend each other don't exist and.. we can't really text," he says, looking down, breaking the eye contact.

   I take a step backwards, and open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out at first.
   "But, you.. Nate, you're my best friend." I say, tears threatening to spill down my cheeks.
Before letting him say anything else, I turn and run out of the room, my tears now stinging my eyes as I run for the bathroom, desperate to get into a stall before the tears start waterfalling.
   Once I get into a stall, I drop my bag on the ground and shut and lock the door, before pressing my back against it and sliding down as I silently sob.
Whether Nate agrees with it or not, Addison always figures out a way to get her way with things. I should know, having been her friend through out elementary and middle school.

    Our friendship came to a screeching halt at the end of middle school. Her and I had gotten into a big argument the night before, over the dumbest shit. Because I wouldn't go up to the guy she wanted to go to the end of the year dance with, and ask him to go with her.
The next day, she asked him herself, and got rejected. What did she do in turn of that? She told people that she had told me she wanted to go to the dance with him, and I went and hooked up with him so he would go to the dance with me instead.
I was called names for weeks. It got so bad I stopped going to school for a week, begged my mom to let me transfer, anything to keep from having to go back.
For the rest of the year, I was a whore, a cunt, a slut, anything they could think of because everyone believed her.

I hear someone walk in, and quickly sniff so I can breathe properly again, and wipe the tears off my face.
"Did you see the look on her face?" I hear a familiar voice laugh, and my heart drops. "So pathetic. She really thought she was gonna get with him at some point," the same voice sneers. Addison. Guarantee she knows I'm in here.

"It was hilarious! I got it on film too, what should we caption it?" I hear Delaney, her best friend replacement tease along with her.
"School ogress gets rejected by popular girls hot jock boyfriend?"
They both start laughing, and I use all my willpower to keep from crying again.

"You hear that, you troll? You're fucking ugly, and will never have a chance with him." Both girls start cackling again and leave the bathroom, just before I start crying again.

I don't know what I did to make them hate me so much. I guess maybe Addison was just looking for a reason to stop being my friend, so she made up the nastiest rumor she could.
It only just got dropped a year and a half ago, too. Some of the kids from our middle school now go to the same high school as us, and continued to jeer and make fun of me for it.
Of course I never did any of that, they just believe her because she's the pretty and popular one. One day, Addison, the karma will come back and bite you in the ass. And you'll regret ever treating me how you do now.

As I wipe some of my tears away, the warning Bell for passing period goes off, which means I only have a couple minutes.
I get up and slowly emerge from the bathroom stall I was sitting in, my bag once again on my shoulders, and I walk over to the sink and look in the mirror, my eyes red and puffy and my nose red and slightly swollen. Perfect.

I bend over and cup my hands under the cold water, and splash it in my face.
I repeat the process a few times before taking a paper towel and patting my face dry.
It's gonna be alright. Just a few more class periods, and you'll be on the way home.

My phone in my back pocket buzzes, and I pull it out and look at the notification I just received.

Instagram
Someone followed you!

I swipe on the notification, expecting it to be one of the people from my school adding me to harass my social media.
I skim through their profile quickly, finding no pictures of them, just nature and wildlife and such.

I swipe back to my notifications center, and look at the username.

PridePierce started following you.

Not thinking about it, I hit the follow button and shove my phone back in my back pocket.
My phone buzzes once, twice, three times more, and then stops. I don't bother to look at it since I'm already behind schedule for getting to my next class, but who cares. It's just stupid Physical Education, which I'm not sure why we're required to take in the first place.

As I start down the steps towards the locker room, I spot Nate already near the bottom, and remember.. him and Addison are both in the same PE class as me. Fuck.
I take a deep breath and sigh as I reach the bottom of the steps and near closer to the women's locker room door.
Well, here goes.